Summer Reading for Writers (plus a #FlashbackFriday: Episode 269)

<p>Two years ago, Jennie Nash and I (this is KJ) got into a debate about what was the best, most helpful book for a writer’s bookshelf. Almost instantly we realized that we couldn’t choose just one (although if we could, I suspect it’s <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780399579745">Save the Cat Writes a Novel for me</a> and Twyla Tharp’s <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780743235273">The Creative Habit</a> for Jennie, but even as I write that I’m having second thoughts in favor of <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781594634727">Big Magic</a> but I’m just SO ANNOYED with her right now because of the whole <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/12/books/elizabeth-gilbert-book-russia.html">take-back-my-book thing</a>) and, yeah. </p><p>Anyway. It’s summer reading time, and to my summer reading list I’ve added a few books about writing, starting with Rick Rubin’s <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780593652886">The Creative Act: A Way of Being</a> and, yes. Twyla Tharp’s book (it’s taken me this long to get over my resistance but JENNIE IS ALWAYS RIGHT about these things) and adding, for a practical note, <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780984157600">Save the Cat Strikes Back</a> by Blake Snyder and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PHG395P">The Trope Thesaurus</a> from Jennifer Hilt. (Want my non-professional summer reading list? <a target="_blank" href="https://kjda.substack.com/">Subscribe to #AmReading</a>.) </p><p>If you’re looking to add to your own professional summer reading, you can’t do better than going back to the series of summer episodes that Jennie and I recorded as a result of that first debate. They’re all listed and linked below, along with the books we discussed, and I’m putting the first of them (<a target="_blank" href="https://amwriting.substack.com/p/episode-269-finding-inspiration-on">Episode 269</a>) here—in which we debate, yes, <a target="_blank" href=